


Huge skies connect us, joining here to there

by alter_antarctica



Series: Shameless US Femslash Week [5]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Day 6 - Fluff, Explicit Language, F/F, Fluff, Shameless Femslash, Shameless US Femslash Week, Slight mention of previous abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 13:53:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2311961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alter_antarctica/pseuds/alter_antarctica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Did your mom ever tell you about the day you were born, Yevy?” she asks. It’s the best she can do, a memory that involves both the baby and Mandy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Huge skies connect us, joining here to there

**Author's Note:**

> This is a post-season four ficlet with Mandy, Svetlana and Yevgeny. Warnings for explicit language, slight mentions of previous abuse and a baby.  
> The title is taken from my favourite Carol Ann Duffy poem, ‘Rapture’, which you should most definitely read!  
> Written for the Shameless US Femslash Week – Day 6 Fluff

Mandy’s the one left watching the baby-meat. It’s as if she’s the last pin standing, after a round of ten-pin bowling, that nobody’s bothered to tell her about. She comes home from work, nursing a series of snags in her second to last pair of orange stockings, which isn’t the worst of her day but it takes the fucking cake, because one of the holes was caused by a customer with fucking pokey fingers and the other by the corner of a grill. She finds Mickey pushing Ian out the door as soon as her key hits the lock. There isn’t time for hellos and goodbyes, just grunts from the boys, and Mandy’s oh-shaped mouth, but Mickey texts her twenty minutes later. Her brother has taken his fuck-you-boyfriend on a super-secret mission, something involving baseball. Mickey said the magic words: To cheer Ian up. And he knows Mandy would do anything to agree to help that plan, even if it is babysitting. The Russian Ice Queen bitch is still at the Alibi, and it’s not even worth her while to guess at that schedule. Svetlana comes and goes as she pleases from the Milkovich house, sometimes with the baby, sometimes not, as if she’s lowering herself to spend any time with Mandy and Mickey. Nika is her shadow.

The baby is crying. A lot. Mandy doesn’t know how to stop it – so far, ignoring it hasn’t worked. Yelling at it from the other parts of the house, also a no-go, as well as turning up this episode of “The Bachelor” that she’s trying to watch. If she were any tougher, she’d let the kid scream on ‘til it bust a lung, but it’s not his fault that everything in its short life is already a shit-show. He can do no good, no bad, no harm as a tiny baby. She’s seen Svetlana coo at it in Russian and that seems to quieten him, but the few Russian words she’s learnt don’t help either – the meaning is beyond her, but she’s pretty sure it involves body parts and liquid.

“Ay Yevy,” she says, picking him up from the middle of Svetlana’s bed and propping the kid against her shoulder. He flings his chubby hands around her hair and she pulls a face when he grabs a fistful. “Fuckface Number Two. Stop that.”

The humming of her vocal chords and her body heat seem to quiet the baby for some seconds, until he’s off and screaming again, bubbles of angry yellow liquid slipping from his mouth and nose.

“Alright, alright,” she says, walking to the lounge and clutching him tighter into her neck. She knows it’s awkward, but she’s also frightened she’ll drop him. “I got to talk to you now, that it? Jesus H Christ. You’re as demanding as your asshat father. We gotta get you some sunshine pills cos nobody wants you to turn out as grumpy.”

His hands move around her neck, and one well-timed fist nearly meets her eye. “Watch the fucking eyeliner. First rule of girls, leave the make-up alone. That’s if you want to get some.” She rolls her eyes. “Jesus. Not gonna prejudge anything, but the way things’ll turn out, you’ll probably be teaching me how to wear it in a coupla years’ time.”

She strokes his downy head as she paces in front of the television, but he only stops screaming when she’s talking to him. Sighing, she stretches her mind to remember comfort from her mother, but that draws a painful blank. Most of her memories are also Mickey’s, shared but also diluted therefore, the stories they swap when no-one else cares.

“Did your mom ever tell you about the day you were born, Yevy?” she asks. It’s the best she can do, a memory that involves both the baby and Mandy. She lowers her voice to a sing-song hum, brushing her lips against his ear. “You were so gooey when you came out. Red and intense and screaming your head off, like you were trying to make your mark on the world already. They had to wipe you off with a towel and it was fucking gross. And then the nurse put you in your mom’s arms and she got this look in her eyes, like she was so fucking pleased to meet you. That it didn’t matter all the pain that you’d put her through, all that fucking Russian banshee shrieking she did that nearly blew my eardrums. You were like this squirming bundle of fucking joy. You know, it could have been fucking me in there, screaming away, pulling at the ugly-ass hospital clothes, telling all the nurses to go fuck themselves, and I’m sure as shit glad it wasn’t.”

She clears her throat and banishes the ugly memories, because there’s no point to look back, no point to mourn for the loss of her innocence. It’s the reason she gets up in the morning, puts on that fucking squirrel hat and leaves the house. Going, moving, forward. Never looking back.

Mandy takes hold of Yevgeny’s feet and his eyes flutter open and shut. “Your feet were so tiny.”

“Is good story,” she hears from behind her, and it makes Mandy jump so that Yev is jostled in her arms. He stirs, and she holds her breath to see if he’ll wake again. Somehow she missed the clip clop of Svetlana’s signature walk into the house. “Spasiba.”

Svetlana walks toward her and Mandy sees she’s taken off her shoes at the door. Of fucking course. The purple high heels tower next to Mandy’s ugly ass Payless work shoes. She pushes the baby toward the Russian girl, but she shakes her head.

“Yev happy there.” She ghosts a painted finger nail, tracing his sleeping smile. “Should do more often. He like you.”

“He fucking doesn’t. I only just got him quiet.”

Svetlana smiles her enigmatic smile that seems to say far more than she’s ever going to say with words. “Better than boys.”

“That’s cos they’re assholes.”

Svetlana’s fingers trail down Mandy legs, poking at the hole in her stockings. “You need me to fix this?” It’s way too fucking intimate for Mandy, but she’s just got a screaming baby to sleep so feels a bit invincible, like she could call in a couple of hundred favours.

She’s about to say something obnoxious, about exchanging a few Andrew Jacksons for this babysitting gig, but then she cools off. The last time she spent so much time with Svetlana was when the baby was born. She hates to admit it, but it feels fucking nice. No-one is shouting at each other. Svetlana is smiling at her, and admittedly it’s coy and devious, but it’s still a smile.

“Let me put Yev down, and I’ll take them off.”

“Need my help?” asks Svetlana, as she begins to follow her into the bedroom.

Mandy laughs. “Maybe later,” she says.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not usually the kind of person that automatically thinks fluff fic = babies (far from it) but I guess it’s natural to assume that some sort of bond was formed between Svetlana and Mandy, given that Mandy was (as far as we know) the only Milkovich present at the birth of Yevgeny. I know it’s also important to acknowledge the trigger for Mandy (let alone how triggering for Mickey) – but part of her strength is that she chose to be there. And whether the show will pursue that bond, my expectations are that I will remain in dreamworld on that, but I thought it worth exploring a bit here. Even if I have just tied myself up in knots.


End file.
